Troubled Standard

I'm writing this with the internet off, because I have somehow managed to contract a computer virus. To be more specific, and more truthful, it is actually malware, and has materialized in the form of a program called, ironically enough, Antimalware Doctor. This program enjoys informing me that I have problems with my computer, to which I mentally respond, Yes, thank you very much. I've found sarcasm to have little to no effect on this program.

Hopefully my Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware software and my AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition will be enough to scour this pestilent persistence from my hard drive. Only time will tell.

And now on to the Real Topic of Today's Post . . .

In spite of the melancholy mood brought about by finishing one of Canadian author Douglas Coupland's novels, I am going to press on and write about racism. The last time I wrote on this topic was in the hodgepodgish bric-a-brac of the post on The Last Airbender. In this case, however, I will take strides to make my thoughts much more cohesive and, hopefully, understandable.

The topic I would like to discuss this evening with you all is when (or more appropriately, why) race is made distinctly clear in conversation, or when an event is being recounted. An example of this would be stating that a guy I saw on the subway was black or Asian, and not elaborating at all if he was white.

Understandably there are quite a few factors to take into account. Where am I at the present (where am I writing this from)? Canada, the West. What is my ethnicity? Filipino-Chinese, Asian. What do I consider myself culturally? An equal mix of Eastern and Western. Who do I find myself interacting with most on a daily basis (ethnically)? Asians.

It's granted that I do live in Canada, where the majority of the populace is Caucasian, but what of it? While I live here I am almost always interacting with my relatives, who are Filipino, or my friend Terence, who is Chinese. Moreover, I live in an area right by Chinatown, where Caucasians are most definitely a minority. With these facts in mind, it would be a poor argument to state that in my current general existence white people are the standard.

Is it because I consider the majority of my audience to be Caucasian, most of the time? Sure, perhaps here on my blog that is the case. And it certainly wouldn't be untrue to consider most of the general populace at the college I attend to be white (as well as my friends at said college).

All factors aside, my issue here is not that other ethnicities are stated, but that Caucasian is the only one that is not. Why this should occur in my case, specifically, when I have lived half my life in Asia, is terribly vexing to me. When I spoke to my friends in Thailand about a scene I saw on the street, was it really necessary that I pointed out that this person was Thai? Shouldn't that have been the standard?

Perhaps this is more a personal issue than anything. If you're white and you interact almost solely with white people, then why shouldn't that be your standard, why shouldn't that just be a given? In my case, however, I find it somewhat troubling. I don’t' know that I'll start stating every single person's ethnicity when brought up in conversation from now on, but I'm going to do something, I just don't know what.